Baby Polar Bears - March 08

Pursuit 23

1. The image generators and widgets were the easiest - a lot of bang for the buck so to speak. I also will keep in mind the Web 2.0 Awards page as a source for new ideas. Embedding videos will be a big time saver for me. I have spent hours recording YouTubes to VHS at home because the site is blocked at SBISD.
2. The course reminded me that there are always new things to learn. I just have to find ways to seek them out. I enjoyed sharing bits of the course with my friends and family. There were 6 of us from our campus that took the course, so I need to organize a way for the 6 of us to present to the faculty what we learned. (That's my job as Technology SIS.)
3. Unexpected outcome - there are so many people out there that spend so much time on the web! So many different comments and threads.
I asked my three twenty-something children if they blog, and they all responded with a similar answer. They used to but it just got to be too time consuming. Specifically, they don't have time to read their friends blogs and post their own.
4. Some of my teacher friends that are more mid-level users struggled through some of the Things. You could provide more specific instructions - but I know the sites change all the time. I used the Help on Blogger and it told me what I needed in a brief, concise format. Maybe you could point that out to learners.
5. Yes, I would participate in another course. I would like to see some coordination with the Education Technology department regarding students actually logging on and using many of these sites. Most user agreements ask if you are over 13 when you register, so how much trouble will we get in if we let our students use these sites???

Pursuit 22

Nings- At first introduction, I thought the concept of Ning providing a social network outside of Facebook or My Space had some possibilities. I spent about 45 minutes looking through your Ning links and some of the Nings posted by other Library2Players. I just have to say that the format doesn't work for me. All the pages are SO crowded that it gives me a headache to read them. There is no "white space" to rest your eyes. (I have a vertigo problem and I don't know if that contributes to my inability to focus on the content.) The content is so random. Less than half of the postings seemed to relate to the goal of the site. This was particularly true in the photos and videos postings.
I don't see any advantage to using the Ning site versus a Blogger page for classroom projects. Am I missing something?

Pursuit 21

I am familiar with Photostory, so I admit that I took the easy option here. I think that I like using it better than Audacity anyway because this way you get the photos along with the sound. Like many other Library2Players, I can't find my microphone here at home, but will try adding some narration once we get back to school in August.

We've done Photostory projects on campus for the last few years. This would be a great way to share them!

BTW - The best way for me to get help with postings is to use the Blogger Help menu. I can find out how to post things in under a minute. I would recommend going straight there instead of wasting time trying to figure it out yourself!

Pursuit 20

I enjoyed viewing the videos on Teacher Tube. I can see where organizing a whole set of tutorials could be useful for our faculty and students. Will have to delve into this further at the start of the school year.

Pursuit 19

The Web 2.0 Awards page has a lot of fun sites to visit. I found Lulu.com which is a site for publishing books and songs. My sister has previously published a short paperback, so this site looked like a good way to publish a second book for her. I looked specifically at the songs section for use on MDE TV. Last spring I went to Best Buy with a mission to buy some new broadcast music but found nothing. Either High School Musical or Sponge Bob. This site seemed to have some cute, original children's songs for either very cheap or free.
I had mentioned in a previous post about a color picker widget that I couldn't get to work on my blog. ColorBlender.com was listed on Web 2.0. Since I am moving into a brand new house next week, I am hoping this help me pick some colors for fabric. I could also use it for making color appealing web pages or presentations.
iFoods.TV was also on the Awards page. I watched the recipe for 10 minute Crab Cakes. I'm going to send this link to my college-age children. They are always looking for recipe ideas, just like their mom!

Pursuit 18

I have experimented with Open Office in the past. I have it on my home computer as well as my new school laptop. I started looking at it more closely after visiting with my niece and her sons. They are constantly struggling with their home computer. Part of their problem is a severely limited budget. I sent them a copy of Open Office to install instead of spending money on Microsoft Office. (They are on dial-up, so it would have taken them a long time to download it themselves.)I haven't heard from them. I am curious to know if they were able to use the program easily. I will have to ask them in person to get honest feedback, and I haven't been to Indiana lately.

Pursuit 17

Rollyo is an interesting concept. It would be nice to use it to narrow searches to my favorite sites to use as a first go around. I had looked for online crossword puzzles in the past, but was never sure which sites were safe to save from on play online. I used the Rollyo Reference list (as previously established by Rollyo) to search Crossword Puzzles and came up with some pretty good results. Much quicker to sort through than my previous searches for this topic. My Search list is at
http://rollyo.com/drtrivialpursuit/trivial_pursuits/. I would have to think for awhile about other sites to add to the Search list.

Pursuit 16

Well, I wandered my way through this one. I have always enjoyed using Wikipedia. They do seem to pick up some really random, accurate information there. I read the accuracy percentage a long time ago. Can't remember exactly what it was but for sure it was in the high 90s. It is definitely my husband's favorite site. He always starts his web searches there.
I looked at some of the posted WIKIs. It seems that many of them have crossed into more of a blog format. I looked at the Sandbox site and left a comment. I got a chuckle out of the What we want in a library list. Everyone seemed to have something to say there!
Before that, I somehow drifted into the Library Hacks links. I found PaperBackSwap.com which I will try for awhile. It reminded me of the book chain letter that circulated our campus earlier this year. I always hate spending money on new paperbacks so this might be a good way to get some cheaper reading. I went to the county library and checked out seven paperbacks last night (I do tend to run through them during the summer!) I found another library hack called Libary Elf that might help me remember when to return them!
Curriculum idea- most likely to try a collaborative information project

Pursuit 15

I think that the Library 2.0 philosophy is needed for today's students. Information on the web can be much more up to date than a book that's been on the shelves for years. You can get so much more information, too. Kudos to the library profession for leading the community to explore new ways to learn and communicate.
I think our greatest challenge as teachers is to get the students to EVALUATE all the information they get from the web. Evaluate and ORGANIZE. This is actually the more time consuming part of technology instruction and it is often skipped over.
I have heard about the forum that was hosted last spring with the higher ups in the Ad building and some high school students. One of the boys on that panel from Memorial High School found a very polite way to state that he had never checked out a book from the library his entire high school career (and, yes, he was a top student at MHS.) Makes you think there are a few challenges out there discovering what a future library should provide.

Pursuit 14

I spent some time looking at Technorati. I found myself just wandering around without any clear plan, so I don't think I'm geared toward this format. When I looked at the Top 100 Blogs, I was surprised to find Ariana Huffington as the top blog! Had no idea she was that popular. The Google Blog was in the top rung too. I've e-mailed my son to see if he actually reads that posting. Technology, news and entertainment seem to carry the most weight in the tags. The technology comments really seem to get the most interaction, hmmmm.
The tags are helpful. Somehow when I've seen them on pages before, I never connected that the larger the text, the more popular the tag. What a great idea! I did enjoy watching the video featuring the Technorati founders. One of the things I learned in a GT graduate class is that computer programmers usually are high up there on the GT traits - they have to think how their code transfers to a user friendly interface - a very spatially orientated task.
I've been experimenting with widgets a bit. I found this Shelfari Bookshelf widget on another Library2Play page. I thought it looked cool. It took me two tries to get it to work. I really wanted to get the Color Matcher, Picker one that I found earlier to work. That would be really useful to have. I couldn't get it to work and now I can't find it again!
Does anyone know how much risk is involved in bringing in these widgets as far as hidden codes? I know the code itself is on blogspot, but can it hurt your home computer when you use the code?

Pursuit 13

I spent some time working with the tagging site. I had used Backflip! in the past so I was familiar with the concept of keeping bookmarks on a remote site. Across the years, I have gotten better about organizing my bookmarks to begin with so I quit using Backflip! The addition of tagging would make the remote bookmarks more useful. If I were to use it, I would have to give some thought as to what tags would be the most useful - work, personal, science, technology, troubleshoot, etc.
Having said all that, I probably won't use the site because of the buttons being added to the Toolbar. Anything being added to the IE Toolbar just makes it launch slower. It also makes me wonder what the button is doing that I don't know about.

Pursuit 12

The Google Blog search was easy to use. And the search return was in their nice, familiar format. I tried searching for Butterfly Gardens and didn't find too much. But then I tried searching for Needlepoint Projects and came up with a bunch of good information. One site had a helpful Color Picker widget that I tried to get onto my blog, but I couldn't get it to work. Will try again later.
I enjoy reading comments from my fellow bloggers. Nice to know someone is looking at my work! I saved some of the html's on the How to Comment links to use with my faculty this fall. I think the Darth Commentator analogy was pretty good. When I read through postings on local news sites, there are always a few lurking DCs.

Pursuit 11

Library Thing - I enjoyed looking at this site. The page design was much better than all those blogs in the last Thing.
I signed up as a user and hope to benefit from this site. I am always looking for good books to read - not just the books that Barnes and Nobles choosed to display. I read the description for The Guernsey Literacy and Potato Peel Pie Society and will have to track a copy of that down. Since I was sick for 4 days in May, I actually had 4 books that I read recently to enter. I cruised through a couple of comments that others made about those books, too.
I spent the day sorting books here at home in anticipation of moving in three weeks. So many books that I'd forgotten we owned! Maybe a site like this would help me get better organized!

Pursuit 10 - more

These image generators are tons of fun! I am just wondering how I would get a class to actually complete a project. It seems that they would spend HOURS choosing which to use! I limited myself to 30 minutes on Thing 10 so that I can keep moving through the course.

Also, I am still confused as to how the students would access these sites and use them. If I am having a hard time keeping up with MY user name and account, I can only imagine attempting this with students. Has anyone tried this with a whole class or grade level? Do you print them all out or post them to your own blog? (Implying that you would enter your blog user name and password for each posting???)

Pursuit 10

ImageChef.com Poetry Blender

Pursuit 9

I have spent quite some time looking for a blog that I REALLY like and, to be honest, haven't found one yet. Most of them are so crowded with ads and other distractions that it's all I can do to concentrate on the content. Yikes!
The "cleanest" site I found was Technorati. The green color must be calming for me. Also, there is a lot of white space on the layout.
My thought is that many blogs haven't really defined their audience. The blogs that I have followed have a specific communication goal. For example, my nephew was studying abroad in Japan last semester. He was able to post on his blog and keep in touch with all of his family - which is a challenge with his 7 brothers and sisters and numerous aunts and uncles. Our niece's softball team won state last year and their blog had every detail you would ever want to know about their games.
It also seems that many of the indivudual blogs start out with a specific idea or goal and somehow totally divert from that goal. They seem to get full of themselves and start posting absurd content that no one else really cares about.
The news blogs may be more useful to other people. I am more of a "general" news browser. M

Pursuit 8

The RSS feeds can be fun to read, but I think I have to develop my scanning skills or else I will spend all day reading on the computer. I have set up a Google Reader account. I hope to use it to keep track of other postings of my fellow teachers at MDE. I've add Tech101 but am looking for the names of our other users.

Pursuit 7

I set up a Google calendar. One features I really like is that you can have more than one calendar. I always have trouble deciding what to list on my Microsoft calendar at work. I hate to list personal events, but if I don't list them, sometimes I loose track of them across the day. It would be nice to be able to separate them, but see them on the same log in.
I have used Picasa before. I also read an extensive evaluation on Notebook, but the author made it sound so complicated that I never tried it. They might have simplified it since its original release, but it still looks a little tricky for elementary students.
My son mentioned that he has used Google scholar for some of his research. But, he is working on his PhD, so I am not so sure about younger users and what kind of links you get.
This same son works for Google during the summer as a programmer. We have had numerous conversations about all the cool things Google develops, but then never really advertises. It seems like you have to have a love for Google in the first place to keep checking what's new on their site. There is also a book out called Googlepedia that was just written this past year that describes all these applications in great detail.

Pursuit 6

I'm watching the Astros play the Yankees while working on my 23 Things, so I have to include a card for Lance Berkman tonight!

Mashups was a new term for me.

The playing cards and mosaics are fun. I am having a hard time keeping up with what user name and password is used for which site.

Pursuit 5

Flickr - We had a chance to practice this with Vaughn last week, so this was an easy part today!

Family Pursuits

This was quick and easy to put together!

Pursuits 3 and 4

I have an Avatar posted. I will be curious to see how often I feel that I need to change her look! The best thing about this activity was that I did something my 22 year old daughter didn't know how to do!

Pursuit 2

My favorite Habits are :
Habit 5: Create your own learning toolbox
Habit 6: Use technology to your advantage
I enjoy getting set up for a detailed project. And, I really appreciate finding ways to use technology in my life to communicate better with others.

First Pursuit

This blog is my first pursuit in learning new ways to use technology. There are so many options in educational technology and I need to have a way to keep up with the pace!